Sacrifice
by Idream3223
Summary: When Hep-V was unleashed on the world the vampire population mutated into something new. Now the hordes run rampant over the planet, driven by an endless hunger to feed on flesh and spread their contagion to all living things. The world is ending in beats fast and slow and Eric is looking for the woman who means more to him than anything else
1. A Light In The Dark

**A Light In The Dark**

Love. We seek it. We covet it. We long for it. We believe that it will save us. No one ever mentions the cost. No one ever mentions the pain of love. The way it burns right through your body and your soul leaving your very being in tatters. If they did, no one would believe them.

Love is something that you can only experience. Yes, it comes with all the warmth and light, but it also comes with pain. When you have both, then you know that you have finally caught that elusive bird of paradise.

You know you are in love when it is killing you and you have no thought of walking away, only toward your own destruction. If there is a price for everything then it is only right that the price for the greatest of all things would be the highest one you could ever pay.

Looking back there was so much that I _should_ have done differently, but nothing that I_ could_ have done differently. In my pride, my pain, my rage I turned my back on the things, the people I cared most about and ran away. It was the first time I had ever let myself do that, but everyone has a tipping point. I could hate myself forever for finding mine, but it would change nothing.

I ran to Sweden, to lick my wounds and play reckless games with my own immortality. I gave no thought to how long my magical immunity to the sun would last. I gave no thought to my cries of pain as I burned alive causing an avalanche. I gave no thought to anything beyond the moment that I was in, and hanging onto that moment as best I could. I knew I wanted to live just as I was about to die.

I would have run forever. I can accept that now. I came to accept that as I felt the snow offer a cover of blessing and protection to my burning flesh. When I lost the ability to run I was forced to think and to feel. More than the burns this knowledge of my own cowardice and failure hurt me. My own mind was my enemy as was my damaged flesh.

When I was healed enough to move there was only one place to go. The place I should have stayed. When I finally made it back to her side I was too late.

I found her in her house, huddled in a corner of her room, whispering to a single candle as though it might answer. I called her name and she turned to me, her hands lighting up as she rose, the madness plain her eyes. "Eric?" she questioned me, herself.

"It's me, Sookie." I started toward her, but her hands grew brighter.

"You're dead. I see you all the time in the shadows. That's how I know!" Her hands grew brighter, and the sound of her voice drew the mutated vampires that I had seen in the field outside her house toward us.

"We must leave this place, Sookie. Please!" I reached a hand to her, not daring to approach in case she hit me full on and damned us both to the fate I could hear coming closer.

"Yes, we must," she said, but made no move. "If you were here I would go with you. If you were here I could tell you how sorry I am for everything…I could tell you before it was too late…I could tell you…" her voice drifted off, and her hands dimmed. She looked away, turning her back to me. "If you were here, Eric, but you're not. You're dead like the rest. You just a ghost now and I am so sorry. SO SORRY!" she screamed the last and fell to her knees her back still to me.

I could hear the mutated Hep-V vampires coming closer and I knew that we were nearly out of time. Moving at hyper speed I picked her up and shot through the window of her room and into the night sky. The mutants were fast, but so far I had found none who could fly. We were safe as long we were in the air.

I was rising above the trees, ready for her to start fighting my hold on her, but when she started cackling madly I nearly dropped her. I was holding her back to my chest and when her head fell back to my shoulder as she laughed manically at the night sky I nearly let her go. I could feel her madness and it was a form of self-punishment that made me hold her that much tighter as I rose higher above the ground.

Glancing down I saw dozens of them watching us. Some wicked empty evil intelligence reflected the moonlight in their eyes. They were hungry. So fucking hungry that I could feel it pulling me back to them, back to the ground.

Pushing myself harder, I held Sookie tighter and pressed on to the only place I could think that might be safe. I had a safe house with a concrete bomb shelter a few miles outside of Shreveport. There was a slim chance that it would still be there, and an even slimmer one that it might be secure, but dawn was close and that was the only hope I had at the moment. She babbled all the way to Shreveport.

"They all died like you, Eric. At first we thought it was just Hep-V, but it mutated. All viruses mutate and the vampires changed. They adapted. They made the virus a part of them! They took them all, Eric. Bill, Alcide, Jason, Sam…" she drifted away again. "They don't need blood anymore, Eric. Now they want…more." She shuddered in my arms then, and I held her tighter, regretting so many things.

I knew what she had seen. I had seen it all around the world on my journey to her. Vampire physiology was superior at adaptation. When Burrell and Sarah Newlin had started this they thought they would wipe us out. Instead they had pushed us into evolution.

Vampires now no longer needed blood, instead they needed flesh. They needed to procreate and pass their viral load onto another host. Anyone who crossed their path fell victim to their teeth and claws and then rose within in three nights becoming a part of the horde. Part vampire, part zombie, all monster. Sunlight was their only remaining enemy.

Most of the world had fallen. I knew of several strong holds, places where they worked for a cure, but there was little hope. In less than six months over three quarters of the world has fallen victim to mutated Hep-V, or Hep-Z, as the scientists called it now. In those strongholds vampires and humans worked together to try and save themselves, but time and the odds were not in their favor.

I had been in one of those strongholds for a time on my way back to her. I had killed three of them to escape. I would have killed more, but I lacked the time and they lacked the bodies to spare. They were doing good work, but I had good work to do, too.

I had to save Sookie.

I scanned the area around the entrance to my stronghold from above. It was clear for now, but they were not far and we would have minutes at best once I hit the ground. "You must be quiet when we land, Sookie. Your voice will draw them to us if you speak before we are secure inside. Do you understand?" She nodded and I hoped that she did understand that this was not a hallucination. I was not a hallucination. If she didn't then it would get real, fast.

The bunker's walls and door were two feet of steel and concrete. The power was on a backup generator that I could start once I was inside. The keypad was powered by solar energy and it should be enough to release the latch and let us in. The knot in my chest did not ease until I heard the bolt snap back. I yanked open the heavy door and ushered her inside. She was surprisingly compliant and quiet.

I closed the door behind us and then turned to her heartbeat in the dark, pushing back the memory of when I had felt like it was my heartbeat, too. "I'm going to pick you up again, now, Sookie. I must turn on the generator." I moved to pick up her up in my arms.

"Is this a dream?" she asked me in the dark, her fear and hope spiking me in the chest.

"No, my Sookie. I am really here." I felt her turn toward me and as she had in The Authority elevator her hand lit up like a nightlight casting shadow on the concrete walls around us.

"You've said that before," she whispered to me, looking up into my shadowed face. I reached a hand out to her slowly, cupping her face in my palm. Her eyes fluttered shut at my touch and she rested her weary head in my hand. She moaned her pleasure at my touch and I felt myself leaning toward her lips, wanting very much to kiss her, to reassure not only her that I was real, but myself that she was.

"I dreamed of you, too, my Sookie," I said just before my lips brushed hers. She sobbed and her light went out as she grabbed my head like a drowning woman and deepened the kiss. She tasted of desperation. It was a new sensation from this woman that I had shared so much with. I let my arms fold her closer to me, letting her feel me, all of me, seeking other ways to reassure her that before her stood a vampire who would die to protect her.

Her tears fell to my lips and their salt mixed with the desperation making something akin to melancholy on my tongue. The spike of pain in my chest deepened and regret rose up from me to add to the concoction of this kiss. I wanted to cry, too, but I could not spare the blood.

"Where've you been?" she asked when rested my forehead on hers in the dark.

"Finding my way back to you." It was the first of many truths I would speak to her before we left the safety of this shelter. There was so much to say, and as always there was no time. My moment of peace with her was shattered when she screamed and jerked out of my arms.

"NO! You are NOT here!" she pushed back and started to try and run, but was so lost her madness that she didn't light up again. She only made it a few steps before colliding with a wall, and crashed first into it and then to the ground. I was beside her instantly, the smell of her blood filling my nostrils.

My fangs dropped. It had been nearly two weeks since I had fed and I needed to get some blood soon before I weakened and could no longer fight. I had some True Blood here, stored before the infection was released, before the factories were destroyed. It was barely more than nothing, but it would delay the inevitable until I could talk to Sookie and see if she would be willing to let me drink from her. She whimpered when I picked her up and moved quickly through the pitch black halls of my underground compound.

First, I started the generator and then I placed her on the bed in what had been Pam's room. Pam, my heart clenched again. She had met the True Death. I didn't know how but I had felt her go. Another regret. Another piece of fallout from my reckless foolishness. I should have stayed and made sure all the infected blood was destroyed. I should have stopped the infected vampires from leaving the camp. I should have been there to protect Pam.

I found my stash and downed three bottle before I let myself return to Sookie. She was still out, tossing and turning fretfully on the bed pink bedspread. Once the water heaters were up and running I would bathe her. I could tell that she had not been taking care of herself. Perhaps a warm bath would bring her back to the woman she had been. The woman I needed her to be.

I felt the blood drip from my nose as I stood there. I needed to rest. I could not spare the blood that I would lose from the bleeds. I stood there a wasteful minute more, looking down at her, debating whether I should trust her to not stake me or blast me if I dared to sleep beside her.

I couldn't leave her though. Shaking my head I decided that we would bathe tonight, and I climbed gently in beside her, tucking her up next to me and holding her close. If she ended me, so be it. I had nothing left but Sookie. The chips would have to fall where they might.

I kissed her head and felt her settle against me, her restless movements ceasing as her arms slid around me. Despite everything, being near her made me feel hope. When she sighed and drifted into a peaceful sleep just seconds ahead of me I let myself believe that I made her feel that hope as well.

"Sookie," I whispered as I surrendered to the call for rest. Sookie…my light in the dark.


	2. Somebody Loves Me

**Somebody Loves Me**

I was watching a band of Z's looking for a way into our compound when she came in. We had been here for several days now and she was still not reconciled to the reality that I was here. She came and went by turns, sometimes talking to me as she had in the past, sometimes she would burst into tears or laughter than underscored her instability as nothing as else could have.

I was starving. I still had True Blood and there were canned goods for Sookie, thanks to Pam. It almost didn't hurt now when I thought of my beautiful progeny. Almost. "If we find ourselves in an apocalypse I will be bringing something better than True Blood into this bunker. They will need supplies." She had held her ground and I was so thankful that she had. Sookie was malnourished, in addition to the psychological damage she had sustained. I was grateful to be able to feed her.

My fangs dropped as she moved to stand beside me and take a look at what I was seeing. Just then one of them looked up into the hidden camera, as though they knew it was there and I got a full on look at the horrible visage of the new vampire.

Their eyes were red. Fangs had become a mouth full of needle like teeth, good for tearing flesh. Their arms were longer, the easier to reach their prey. They were long and rangy creatures who moved at speed, but thankfully not vampire speed. They has lost their hyper speed in the tradeoff for more fangs and ability to consume flesh.

The creature before us opened his mouth, revealing a second set of teeth recessed behind the first. Just then one of the others bumped against him and in a rage at being denied entrance to my compound he turned and bit the other Z.

He came away with a mouth of flesh, cannibalizing his own kind in his endless hunger. Sookie laughed beside me as though she had just seen something that amused her. She shouldn't be watching this, I thought and turned toward her.

"Maybe they will eat themselves up!" she said, clapping her hands and swaying side to side lost in the joy of her musings. "Oh, that would be great!" She turned then, pirouetting in the small surveillance room, humming as she turned again and again then suddenly stopping, a frown on her face. "I wish you were really here, Eric! If you were here I could tell you what was happening."

She did this sometimes, talked to me as though I were not really there and still a figment of her imagination. This was a good night. The bad nights she balled up in the corner and cried, screaming as she relived horrible visions that were on loop in her brain. Sometimes I wished I could read her mind, but then seeing her memories would not heal them. I was at a loss. Sighing I decided to go along with her and see where that might take us.

"Tell me, Sookie. Pretend that I am here and tell me all the things you long to say!" My passionate plea broke through her madness and she smiled a little again, turning to look at me.

"I miss you." I knew how she felt. I missed her, too. Every day I fought to get back to her I missed her. The hell of it was that standing here in the room with her I missed her still.

"What else, Sookie. Tell me anything, everything."

"I wish I had been braver when we met." I raised an eyebrow. Again, I knew how she felt. I wish that I had been braver when we met, too.

"Braver, how?"

"I wanted to talk to you that night. Just take your hand and lead you off into some quiet corner and tell you all the secrets of my heart." She took my hand then, rubbing it gently between hers.

"W-What would you have told me, Sookie?"

"I was always alone. My family shunned me, the other kids they shunned me, called me Crazy Sookie. Did you ever know that, Eric?"

"How would I?" She shrugged still looking at my large hand in hers.

"You moved in mysterious ways, who could say what you knew? Perhaps you looked into me that night and saw everything that there was to know." Oh, if only that had been true. If I had been thinking of something other than my dick in my stupid complacency…if I had been gifted to read her mind what treasure might have found in the girl who stood before me in the white dress?

What would I have done if I had known she would remain with Godric on the roof in Dallas as he left me and this world behind? What would I have done if I could see her facing down Russell to save that useless excuse for a vampire Compton? What might I have done if I had known then in that moment that we were hurtling toward a place and time when I would offer to be one with the fabulous effervescent creature that she would become?

"What could I have said that night to encourage you to be brave and do these things, my Sookie?" She smiled sadly.

"Telephony," she whispered softly as tears started to slip down her cheeks again. I was losing her. She was slipping away and would start screaming again any minute now. Denying that I was here. She was so sure when she slipped away into her own dark world that sometimes I almost believed her and wondered if I _were_ a ghost here to haunt her. Then I would feel my own pain and remorse and remember that this nightmare was as real for me as it was for her.

I was wrong though, she didn't start screaming, she just stood there a moment and then walked closer to me and pressed her body to mine, turning her head to rest on my cool chest. "When I was little I had no one to play with most of the time. So, I made my stuffed animals my friends. When I was six my Gran gave me a unicorn. He was beautiful!" Her arms slipped around me now and I stood as still as I could afraid to break the spell of her memory.

"He was white, with large blue eyes and a long golden mane. I took him everywhere with me. I told him all my secrets and loved him with my whole heart. He was my best friend until…" she stopped here hiding her face in my chest and I knew that my six year old Sookie had somehow lost her best and beautiful friend. Seeking to distract her from yet another unpleasant memory I asked the first thing that came to my mind.

"What did you name him Telephony?"

"Aunt Linda worked for the phone company. She was over visiting Gran one Sunday and talking about her work. She said the word 'telephony' it had something to do with her work and I remember I piped up and said, 'If I had a unicorn I would name him Telephony!' They had all laughed but that Christmas my gran gave me a unicorn. She remembered. She always remembered…" She was sniffling now still with her face buried in my chest.

"If you had said 'Telephony' that night I would have known because that was all I could think as I stood there and looked at you on your throne. Your pale white skin, beautiful blue eyes, and long blond hair. For just a moment I thought I had found my best friend again."

She sighed then, dropping her head. "But I lost you before I could tell you that, before I could be sure…but there were moments when you lost your memory and I saw you, the heart of you…in those moments I would whisper your name to myself and I would think of my beautiful unicorn."

"I am right here, Sookie. Look at me, please!" She kept her head down and shook it from side to side in denial.

"If I look you will be gone." Her quiet voice was barely a whisper but it conveyed her breaking heart with an accuracy that was devastating.

"Then close your eyes and feel me." It was all I could think to say. To my surprise she did, her arms coming back around me again.

"If you were here you would be hungry," she said softly turning her face up to mine keeping her eyes tightly shut. "I know you aren't real because you haven't asked me to bed or to let you feed." I chuckled.

"To bed?" She smiled now.

"From the moment I met you, you were trying to get in my pants, Eric Northman! I know that no matter what else has changed that surely hasn't!"

"Well, that was saucy!" I said, replaying what I had told her when she returned to me from Fae.

"But not wrong. You wanted my legs to magically open for you. You just never figured out that the way to make that happen was to win my heart." I kissed the top of her head softly and turned my cheek to rest against it.

"Oh, I knew it, my Sookie. I knew it the moment I saw you. I was just…afraid."

"Pfft! You weren't afraid of anything. Ever!"

"I was scared of you and the way you made me feel." She held me tight to her then.

"I was scared, too." My undead heart clenched.

"You faced down things that would have sent most people over the edge. What scared you about me?"

"That I would stand beside you, love you and find out that I was made for you, to be with you…to be like you."

"And that would be bad?" She hesitated, struggling to find her words.

"It would have been different. You wanted me to be everything I could be. Everyone else just wanted me to be what they wanted me to be."

"Yes, because I loved you, I wanted you to be everything you could be."

"But what…what if I was…a…m-m-monster?"

"Is that what you thought of me?" She shook her head and then rubbed her face on my chest.

"You told the world what you expected from it. I was from a place where the world told me what it wanted from me. The distance between the two is immeasurable." She burrowed closer to me then and her voice dropped so low that I would not have heard her if it wasn't for my vampire hearing. "I watched them kill everyone I knew, Eric, but they wouldn't take me."

I stiffened in her grasp. I had wondered how she had survived until I found her the other night.

"What does it mean if I am so bad that even the monsters don't want me?" My mind started to race. As a vampire Sookie was almost irresistible with her hybrid Fae nature. She called to us like a siren song, but if what she was saying was true the Z's did not want her and for some reason could not even stand to touch her. Was this another thing they had lost in their evolution to better killing machines?

Before I could figure out how to turn this to our advantage she started to shake in my arms. She needed an answer from me. She needed to hear something other than cold logical reason that was running rampant defense in my mind.

"It means, my Sookie, that there is a higher power looking out for me. I know that now because of everything I have and could still yet lose, you are safe. It means that somebody up there loves me."

"I loved you, Eric. I should have told you before it was too late and I lost my chance. You just…always think that there is time, that this is not the right time, and that you have more time. But it ran out when I was looking somewhere else and I lost you like I lost Telephony. I am so sorry I never told you when I had the chance. Of all my regrets…"

"No, no more regrets. You feel me here with you now. Say that you do!" She stood there quiet and not speaking. "Say it, Sookie!"

"When my eyes are closed I do feel you, but I have always felt you, or for you, or with you. I would have cut you out of me if I could! When there were none but me left, I could still feel you. It seemed the cruelest trick of all that I could feel someone I had lost forever." Unable to take another horrible word from her precious lips I pressed mine to hers to make the words stop.

She moaned and opened her lips to me, rubbing her warm body against mine, still seeking I knew to prove that I was not there with her in this moment. My fangs were still down demanding so many things not the least of which was sustenance and when she pushed her tongue over one whimpering from the pain I moaned and sucked her blood into my mouth.

Her hands locked behind my neck and she leaped up wrapping her legs around me. "If you are here, then drink. If you are here you need it, and if you are here I want it. I want to feel you, please. Don't go away. Please be here, Eric!" Her pleas and my hunger overrode my reason and I let my face come to rest in her neck, breathing in the scent of her.

I was overwhelmed with memory and with need and when my fangs slid into her flesh she writhed in my arms while holding her head still. "Yes!" she whispered into the room as she held me close to her and drank as though I had never tasted blood before. It was only hearing her heart slow that called me back to this place and time and the realization that she was close to dying in my arms. I pulled back and licked her neck clean placing a soft kiss on her skin. "Thank you," I whispered to her as I held her closer. She purred and burrowed closer to me, drifting away from the blood loss and the emotional exhaustion she was feeling from everything that she had survived and the things she had shared with me tonight.

Feeling her coursing through my veins renewed not only strength but my conviction that we would find some way to get through this. If the Z's truly reviled her, then perhaps there was something in that revelation that could turn this around for us.

Gently I carried her to bed and placing her down gently crawled in beside her to let my mind do what it did best while I let my body do what it wanted to do, protect the sleeping woman next to me.


	3. Part of My Mind

**Part of My Mind**

What did it mean that the Z's didn't want Sookie? As I lay beside her in the dark my mind raced to comprehend not only why but what this might mean in the bigger picture. Did the answer lie in her hybrid nature? It was the only thing I could conclude, but there was much about her that I did not know as evidenced by her unicorn story.

"It's the little things that make us who we are," Godric's voice whispered to me taking me back to another time when we had talked of such matters as we pretended to be SS officers in Hitler's Germany. Oh, Godric! I wish you were here now! What might be different if you had found the strength to stay here with me just a little longer?

Sookie turned in my arms bringing me back to the here and now. No time for such flights of fancy. The simple fact was that Godric was not here. I was alone. I had to accept that and keep moving forward.

I slipped out of bed and headed first to the surveillance room to check outside, then I would go and prepare something for Sookie to eat. I had taken so much blood from her and she need to build her strength back.

Outside there were more now just standing there looking at the door as if they were in a trance. This was new. Before they had always been moving, shuffling around even if they weren't actually going anywhere. The only other time I had seen them stop and focus on any one thing was when I had looked down at the field outside Sookie's house as we flew away. I got the same chill up my back now that I did then. I didn't know why but seeing those mindless creatures focused on any one thing was chilling. It was chilling because it might indicate that they were not so mindless after all.

I headed to the storage area thinking of some of the theories that had run rampant in the stronghold before I escaped. One of the scientists had theorized that they were not mindless at all, but rather hive minded. He thought that there was one that commanded the others. One that had mutated to lead and the masses were little more than drones acting out the single will of one individual.

He wanted to capture the creatures for study to prove his theory but there was vicious resistance among the others about bringing any of them into the stronghold. The arguments raged some asking how they could test and find a cure without a test subject while others declared the risks were too great. It was this fear of exposure to the Z's that had left me to fight my way out to get to Sookie.

Some of them felt that any exposure was too great a risk. I would have agreed if self-preservation had been my goal. I would have counseled that we wait and see what happened when there was no one left to be infected. It was the safest thing to do as long as the supplies held out.

I was not being driven by self-preservation, not then and not now. Shaking off the chill I moved to storage and tried to find something that would help Sookie regain her strength. I still had not been able to convince her to bathe. Any approach from me or suggestion that she do that sent her into hysteria. I would try again tonight after she ate. Perhaps our earlier interaction had helped to heal her ravaged mind in some way.

After I finished preparing her meal I moved back to the room where she was sleeping. As I drew closer I heard her speaking to someone. This was not new either. She often talked to people who weren't there. My hopes for her improvement were dashed to hear her doing it again, and then bottomed out completely as I heard what she was actually saying.

"I don't understand, Karin. How will that help to change things? No, no, that can't be right! First, Eric isn't here, just like you aren't here and I am alone! What you suggest isn't possible! If he were here it _could_ work, but he would_ never_ allow-"

She stopped as she sensed me in the doorway, turning toward me fear and anger in her wide open eyes. I would never get used to seeing that. She was supposed to be so many things but never afraid, not my Sookie. She was stronger than that!

"Sookie?" She didn't answer or move. "I made you something to eat. You need to keep up your strength. I took too much before. I am sorry." She sat there on the bed looking at me and she slowly tilted her head to the side, processing my words or perhaps my very presence. "Sookie?" I called softly again, praying she would answer. That she would remember I was here, really here with her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she held out her arms calling me to her.

I moved to her immediately and sat down pulling her close to me. She kept her eyes closed and felt me next to her, her arms wrapping around me as she again rested her head on my chest. She was panting now, I could smell her fear and it broke my heart. "I am here."

"I made you something to eat, will you let me feed you, Sookie?" She nodded her head but didn't speak. Nor did she open her eyes or let me go. I picked her up again and took to the small dining area that again Pam had insisted we have for our human emergency kits. "They will need to feel comfortable here, Eric." I had almost thought she cared, and then she had corrected me. "They taste better when they are happy." A ghost of smile ran over my face as I thought of her insistence that essentially boiled down to a better way for her to survive. I had taught her well. In some ways I had not failed her. It hardly made up for all the ways I had.

I kept Sookie in my lap and fed her bites, telling her when to open and watched her as she ate every last bite. Her body demanded sustenance at least that was still functioning even if her reason had fled permanently. Please let her come back to me! I thought and then wondered who might listen to my prayers, who was out there that might care about how much I cared about her. Hugging her to me I braced myself for what came next.

"I would like to bathe you, Sookie. Would that be all right?" She hesitated a moment and then nodded, her eyes still tightly scrunched shut. Rather than risk upsetting her I moved slowly and carefully to the bathroom before sitting her on the toilet. She reached for hand, holding it tightly as I turned the water on and let it warm up. I knelt at her feet. "I need to undress you now." Again she surprised me letting go of my hand and raising her arms over her head for me to remove her shirt.

Oh, so slowly I removed her dirty clothing. Pam had clothes here that I could replace them with as soon as she was done with her shower. I regretted that there was no tub because I knew I was going to have to get in with her and help. I removed only my shoes before picking her up and stepping into the shower with Sookie in my arms and my clothes still on.

I thought of her telling me that I wasn't really there because I hadn't tried to bed her and I could see her point. I had made that bed, so to speak. It was easy to offer her my body. It was almost impossible to offer her my heart, but that is what I was doing as I let her lean against my clothed form as I shampooed her hair working it to a lather and then tilting her back to rinse the suds out.

Her eyes were still shut and she was making such sounds of pleasure that I shampooed her again, massaging her scalp gently encouraging her to relax with me. When I rinsed her again I took the body wash and washcloth and starting with her feet I bathed her, ending at her shoulders where I massaged her again. Aside from her moans of pleasure she had been silent the entire time. I had almost hypnotized us both with the rhythmic squeezes of her shoulder and neck.

"We're not safe here anymore." I looked down at her closed eyes and relaxed features. I had not seen her look this at peace since I had found her. "Karin says-"

"We are safe here, Sookie. You don't need to worry." I wanted to reassure her, keep her feeling relaxed and safe.

"No, Karin says-"

"Who is Karin?"

"She's…" she frowned again struggling for words. I regretted pressing her when I felt her stiffen against me as she tensed up again. Wanting to comfort her I made a shushing sound and continued to massage her shoulders. She started to struggle in my arms and I feared that she might slip and fall so I reached behind her and turned off the water taking her out of the shower and wrapping her in a towel. She stopped fighting as I dried her hair with another towel.

I carried her back to the room she had been sleeping in and set about finding her something to wear. Pam had brought several of her designer track suits here and some tennis shoes. I picked out a soft pink suit and some tennis shoes and was about to turn back to her when she spoke again.

"I tried! He won't listen!" I closed my eyes and braced myself on the closet door. I had to find the strength to face this. I had to find a way to make this right! "I know! I know, Karin! He won't listen to me!" Taking a deep unnecessary calming breath I turned back to face her planning to just go with it as I had earlier. It hadn't turned out so bad then.

"Tell me what, Sookie?" I was shocked to see her eyes open and even more so when they turned to me and she did not flinch or scream.

"We're not safe here anymore, Eric." I shook my head and moved to her side. She stood and so much like her old self that it made my chest clench she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the control room. She did not seemed to be bothered by her lack of clothing at all, but I was still holding them when she pulled me into the surveillance room and pointed at the monitor.

Planning to humor her, or to make her truly see that there was no way anyone was getting into this place I glanced at the monitor and then turned back to her to speak. As I opened my mouth what I had seen registered and I turned back. One of creatures was punching numbers into the keypad that secured the lock.

As I watched him input numbers I saw but could not accept that that it was indeed entering in sequences that were combinations I had used in the past as well as standard sequences that were in my rotation to use. There was a long list of them, but they were all rotated through on a regular basis in this and my other secure locations. WHAT. THE. FUCK?

Sookie took the clothes from me and started pulling them on as I stared at the creature bent on cracking my safe house code. Somewhere I registered that Sookie seemed better, that she was dressing herself. Somewhere I heard her telling me that if there was anything from this place that I needed that I needed to gather it quickly.

Part of my mind bent itself to that task. Food for Sookie was at the top of list. It was a long way to my next safe house and I didn't think we could fly there before sunrise.

Part of my mind was wondering if we should try and return to the stronghold I had escaped from. If her immunity from Z's held some secret that might lead to a cure?

Part of my mind was wondering how long we could run and hide?

Part of my mind was wondering how many were in the house attached to this shelter and would we be able to get through them unscathed when we went out the back door to this place?

"Who is Karin?" I asked as I watched the creature continue to enter sequences of numbers into my solar powered keypad.

"Move, Northman!" was the only answer I got. Right, move Northman. Moving at hyper speed I grabbed a back pack and threw in change of clothes for myself and Sookie as well some canned goods and a can opener. Then I changed into dry clothes and reappeared before her in less than a minute.

She reached out and touched my chest as I placed her in my leather jacket. She broke contact only long enough to put her arm in the sleeve. It swallowed her, but it was meant for warmth not fashion. I was about to ask who Karin was again when I heard the bolt roll back on the door.

They had cracked the code. The howls and growls of hunger echoed through my underground halls as the horde rushed in seeking to satisfy their endless hunger.

I slung the pack over my shoulder, grabbed Sookie and headed for the exit that went up into the house above.


	4. Banging On My Sanity

**Banging On My Sanity**

When we came out into the house above there were a half a dozen Z's right outside the door waiting for us. When the door came open I kept moving at hyper speed dodging their reach and making for the nearest exit. I was so intent on keeping Sookie from their grasp that I misjudged and felt one of them rake my back with their claws hitting me with enough force to send me flying as he flayed my back. I turned to protect her from landing under my weight taking the brunt of the fall into the wooden side board of the dining room.

Pam picked that out, I thought as it splintered on impact, breaking my ribs and lodging several pieces of wood into my neck and back. One of them felt dangerously close to my heart. I saw Sookie shake her head and rise to stand between me and the Z's that were still coming. Moving faster than I would have thought a human could she leaned down and took a mouthful of blood from my neck wound, turning as she swallowed her hands lighting up.

Blast after blast light she threw at them and even in my dazed pain I could register that she was doing some serious damage with her light bolts. They pulled back and stood as one staring at us again. Keeping her eyes on them she moved behind me and raised me up to see the worst the damage. I heard her take a breath and then she jerked the wood from my back. My ribs were healing but I had lost a lot of blood. She took another pull from my neck and then stuck her wrist in my mouth.

A thousand thoughts ran through my mind. None of them were appropriate to the moment. We were about to bond a second time. I had yet to explain the first one to her. I knew what she intended was healing. She had no idea what she was offering. I was in no position to refuse her. I was not sure I would have refused her even if we had all the time in the world to discuss this action.

I bit her without hesitation. I took enough to heal as fast as possible. I took a part of her into me, and as she pulled at my neck for the third time, succinctly refusing to let my blood loss be a waste I gave another part of myself to her.

It was the most gloriously terrible moment of my entire existence.

I was on my feet in seconds the sound of my ribs popping back into place whole made a sick disgusting sound as I took her back in my arms ready to move again. The horde was still standing still observing us as one. When they spoke as one actual gooseflesh broke out on my cool vampiric skin.

Fuck! I didn't know that could even happen.

"**_SSSSSSSSOOOOOOKKKKKKIEEEEEEEE!_**" In the shock of it I hesitated. It was a mistake. The togetherness that had saved my life collapsed like a house of cards and she started screaming and fighting in my arms. Holding her tighter I moved again, bursting through the nearest widow and reaching for the sky like a lifeline. Below me I saw more coming, moving in _en masse_ toward the house. A few more seconds and we could have been overrun. They cries of rage at being denied followed us into the night, barely perceivable over Sookie's screams in my arms.

I shifted her so that she was pressed to me and wrapped my arms and legs around her as we flew. "Sookie, we are safe," I whispered to her, running my hands up and down her back trying to calm her. I kept repeating it to her until eventually she did stop screaming but she was shaking so hard I feared she might fly to pieces.

After calming Sookie I raced to figure out where we might go. She must have felt my hesitation because she managed to say between chattering teeth from her shock that we needed to go east. My instinct had been to go west further from the sun and I stopped in mid-air to question her. I had ignored her before, dismissed her words as madness and that had been an error that nearly cost us our lives. Before I made that mistake again, I would try and listen.

"Why east?"

"W-we h-have t-to go to a p-place called F-Four Point in Mississippi." Four Point, I was familiar with that place. It was right over the border between Louisiana and Mississippi.

"Why, Sookie?"

"K-Karin says that she will m-meet us there."

"Who is Karin?"

"S-someone who can h-help fix t-this." She buried her head in my chest then and refused to speak further. Was Karin real or was she a figment of Sookie's tortured mind? There was no way to know other than to go to Four Points and see if she was there. I turned it over in my mind. 'Karin' had been right about our safe house not being safe. That was one in favor of trying. The bottom line though was that there really was nowhere else to go that would give us anything other than what we had just experienced.

Nodding, I kissed her head and reassured her. "Four Points it is then, my Sookie. Thank you for saving me back there." She nodded.

"Welcome." I had more questions. Did my blood make her stronger like it seemed to? Is that why she drank before facing the Z's? How did she know it was have that effect? Did she feel me now in our twice bonding like I felt her? Cautiously I opened the bond. I could not risk getting sucked into her madness. She was a boiling pot of hot emotion up and down and all around and all over the place. I kissed her head again and whispered my love to her and I felt part of her settle into something like complacency.

"I know," was all she said.

"Thank you, Han Solo," I said without thinking. Once it left my lips I regretted teasing her, but she surprised me.

"Anytime, Princess," she mumbled to my chest and I felt a tiny spark of amusement in our bond. I started flying east thinking of where we might stop for the night. She wasn't going to like it but it was the best chance we had to stay safe and together. Our other option was that I go to ground for the day and leave her alone and unprotected. The Z's needed to hide from the light but there were other things out here to worry about as well. Survivors and what they might do if they found her alone and vulnerable.

No, leaving her alone was an absolute last resort.

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When we landed at Russell's old mansion in Jackson an hour before sunrise she took one look and then buried her head in my chest again. I knew how she felt. I did a quick scan and surprisingly found that there were no Z's in range of my senses. Still holding her I entered the house and moved through it at vampire speed. No one was here, but other than that it looked just as it did when last we were here.

Odd, I had expected it to be gutted, all of Russell's great treasures removed, but perhaps there had been things higher on The Authority's agenda, when there had been an Authority. The Sanguinista's and Compton had ended that and since then the roller coaster had continued to run on I supposed.

Better things to do, more people to kill. Lilith to release. Was that what the Z's were? Lilith's vision made flesh? Was she still out there somewhere?

I secured the doors and barricaded us into what had been Russell's study. Glancing around the room I noticed the remains of Talbot in the carpet and the hole I had punched into his treasure cabinet to take back my father's crown. Was that the moment that all of this had spun so completely out of control?

My action of vengeance had provoked Russell into his barbaric act of revenge on national television. Had the humans been planning camps and anti-vampire weaponry before that moment or was that the planting of the seeds for this nightmare world?

So many questions, regrets and fears banging on my sanity that I could easily wind up in a ball beside Sookie rocking and drooling as I stared into distance seeing nothing but ghosts.

I needed answers. Knowledge would quiet my fears and reason with my terrors. She was sitting on the sofa in the dark when I lit the candles I had found in dining room. I sat beside her and took her hand in mine. So many questions. Where to begin?

Begin with what is most important, Godric whispered in my mind again. Right. What's most important?

"Sookie, what happened when we escaped the safe house…" she turned toward me, her eyes still open. Her hand clenched mine. "You saved me with your light. How? Was it because you drank for me? Did my blood help?" She nodded her head still looking at me as she though any minute I was going to disappear on her. "How did you know?" She shrugged but clenched my hand tighter still. It would have hurt if I were human.

"I had some time to think about…things." I waited, hung by her every word. "You said I was two Sookie's?" I nodded now. "You liked fairy Sookie better, and I think that is because she is yours." I raised an eyebrow not following. She sighed before going on.

"I was always a telepath, but I never shot light or nothin' until I had your blood." My other eyebrow went up. "After Dallas…I was coming out of my shell…my skin…my mind. After Dallas…I was fairy Sookie." I wanted to tell her that I loved her human side and her fairy side. I loved all her sides but I held back hoping she would go on. She pulled back from it though, shrugging again, distancing herself from saying that she was mine again. I so desperately wanted to hear it. I licked my lips as though I could taste the words she kept from me, from herself.

"It was just a hunch that your blood would boost me. I had nothing to lose either way." She dropped her head again.

"We shared blood like that before. Do you remember when we drank together, in the cubby?"

"Yes," she whispered, still refusing to look at me. "You said 'We will be one'," she did a pretty decent imitation of my deep gravelly passion filled voice and I had to smile. I had not known that she had a natural gift for mimicry.

_It's the little things…_

"We bonded then in the cubby and again tonight." She nodded keeping her head down. "You know what this means?"

"We are connected. It's why….why I could feel you even when you left me."

"You are only supposed to feel me after we do it three times," I said softly.

"Yes, because I have _always_ done just what I was supposed to do when it came to you." She amazed me, even now broken into pieces her sass and intelligence captivated me.

"So, can you feel more now after we have done it a second time?" She nodded again.

"I'm sorry, Eric. I should have asked but…I needed to save you…and…and I needed to be sure, really, really sure that you were really, really here. I just had to know. It was wrong I know, 'cause who would wanna be tied to a nutcase? Right? Right. But I had to do something and- "I cut off her babbling with a kiss to reassure her that there was no regret in me for our second bonding. I pulled back and rested my forehead on hers with my eyes closed for change.

"Thank you," I said again. It covered all the wondrous things she had done this night and all the others since she had moved into my heart. I opened my mouth to ask about Karin but this time it was her kiss that silenced me. When she pulled back she asked her question instead.

"You are ok, right? I mean they didn't bite you did they?"

"No," I reassured her softly.

"Lemme see," she said standing to move behind me and pull up the remains of my shirt. She pulled it over my head and ran her hand over my once again flawless skin. Her touch was amazing. It tingled. I noticed the room was brighter and turned to see her hand on me alight with her amazing power. Everywhere she touched was a like a small electrical charge. I had felt that before when she zapped me to stop me from killing Bill and returned my memories to me.

Was that where it all went wrong? If she had left me an innocent would this have all turned out differently? My body overrode my mind responding to her touch. I wanted her, but she was not well enough to make this kind of decision. I could not risk damaging her further by letting this go where I so very badly wanted it to go.

I could feel the bond pulling at me, wanting to be complete. The circle so close to being closed was the sweetest of hell. I reached out with my mind and opened the connection to her and found that I could feel the same desire in her. Did she truly want that or was it just my blood calling to me from inside her body? Was the blood working its will on us both? Did it matter?

I heard the zipper on the top of her track suit come down and my body responded. If I turned around and saw her there the choice would be made. I remained frozen when I felt her press her naked breasts to my broad back, the tingle telling me that now her whole body was alight. It made my body tingle and my cock throb with need. It hurt and I needed to adjust myself but I still refused to let my body move. She kissed my neck making me tingle more where her lips touched me softly. "Will you finish the bond with me? Do you want that, Eric?" More than anything. Ever.

"If that is what you want," I said still not moving. "What do you want, my Sookie?" My hands clenched fearing that this would stop now, or that I would wake and find this was a dream as she had been telling me since I found her in Bon Temps.

"Everything," she whispered in my ear. I turned and pulled her into my arms before she finished quoting me again, mimicking my tone sounding so deep and sexy as I had when I had said it to her. I looked into her eyes, seeking reassurance, but she closed them and kissed me. I was powerless in the face of her as I had always been.

My kryptonite. My bane. My poison. My pleasure. My fairy. "My Sookie," I whispered before I took charge of the kiss and pulled her into my lap.

"My Eric," she answered as her arms came around my neck and she pressed closer to me. There was no time for this. There was no time for anything but this. So many questions. So many kisses. So much danger. So much passion. So much uncertainty. So much certainty. This was the only thing that mattered.

"I am yours," I told her as I kissed her neck making her tremble in my arms. "Make it true," I begged her shameless in this stolen moment of undeniable need. Her legs still covered in her track suit wrapped around my hips squeezing me as she rubbed her body against my hard cock. She locked herself around me and nothing had ever felt so good as that moment in her arms. She kissed my neck, and then she licked me just before she bit down with her blunt teeth breaking my skin and making me bleed for her.

My fangs sank into her a moment later and through my closed eyes I saw the room get brighter and she took more of me into her. My hands came to her hips pulling her hard against as my hips rocked up into her over and over again as we feasted on each other. She came in my arms moaning just as my neck healed and I followed right behind her exploding beneath her writhing hips. She pulled deep moans of pleasure from my body as I licked her neck clean and pricked my tongue to heal her wounds.

She was glowing like the sun now and I held her tighter not caring if it meant the end of me. I felt our new bond open up between us rushing like a swollen river. I tasted her madness, her loneliness and her love. Her love for me. The current swept me away. I let it. Images and thoughts came rushing at me.

Z's killing Bill, Jason, Alcide, Tara. So much blood but when they faced her they had backed away. I felt her anguish and her pain as she screamed at them, raged that they left her when they had taken all else.

I saw a woman, no a fairy….no! A vampire fairy with red hair. "You must come to Four Points, Sookie! Bring Eric. There is still time to stop this! If we-"

"NO!" Sookie roared leaping from my arms, madness rampant in her eyes again as the bond slammed shut catching part of my soul in its hinges. The psychic pain made me scream, too. I grabbed my head and kept screaming at the blunt severing of our fully open bond. "NO! NO! NO!" Sookie kept screaming over and over, her arms wrapped tightly around her, her body bent over as tears poured down her face.

I wanted to go to her but I was not able to move. Blackness came in on me, my perfect vampire vision narrowing to a small circle. Just before it closed and I blacked out I heard Karin again.

_There is still time…_


	5. No More Running

**No More Running**

_"I don't pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love when every day is a struggle to survive, but I do insist that you do survive because the days and the years ahead are worth living for."_

I woke slowly to those words. At first I thought that Sookie was talking to herself again. Sookie! I remembered her screaming then I sat up quickly and looked around. She had opened the barricade and left the door wide open to the study. At the moment she was sitting on the floor watching what appeared to be an episode of Star Trek. Kirk was on the screen staring longingly at a woman. Since there was really nothing unique about that the exact episode escaped me.

My head no longer hurt and as I sat there staring at her small back I found my mind wandering again. Russell obviously had a generator and she had gone out to find it. I wanted to remind her about safety but it was moot at this point. At least she wasn't screaming.

My internal senses told me that it was about an hour before sunset. If we were leaving tonight we needed to be getting ready to move. I debated on staying here another night. Sookie was completely enraptured by the television. I suppressed a shudder imagining Russell and Talbot curled up together on this very sofa making kissy faces while they watched the Star Trek DVD's. Sookie had them spread around her on the floor. All the stations had stopped broadcasting months before.

Kirk was now walking with the woman down a street dressed in twentieth century clothes.

_"Are you afraid of something? Whatever it is, let me help."  
>"Let me help."<br>"A hundred years or so from now, a novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over "I love you."_

Ah, The City on The Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison. I had been a science fiction convention in Atlanta once and seen him dragged away by the police ranting over this story. It was a very sore point with him and whenever it came up he completely lost his composure. Godric had been with me that night and we had watched him being hauled away with rueful expressions on our faces before two beautiful women had taken us back to their hotel rooms.

Science fiction fantasy conventions had been a great place for vampires to hang out before the Great Revelation. Everyone thought it was a costume. Those who found out different did not remember.

At least she picked a good episode to watch. She rose then and came to me, climbing into my lap her eyes still glued the screen. I sighed, feeling such relief to have her close. It had always mattered to me, but now that we were fully bonded it was more important than ever. Not thinking I kissed her temple and folded her into my arms. She relaxed against me and we sat there as though we had all the time in the world and finished watching this episode. Sookie cried at the end when Kirk's woman died, turning her face into my chest and closing her eyes again.

"Are you ok, Sookie? It's just a TV show."

"I'm sorry about before," she said to my chest. "I didn't know that would happen, that you would be able to read my thoughts when the bond was open. I panicked. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I'm fine," I reassured the top of her head. She sniffled and nodded. "I see you've been out today."

"I found the TV and the DVD's. I wanted to see if there was a generator so I could watch. I found some more food in Russell's kitchen and ate, too. Are we staying here tonight?"

"I had considered it."

"I want to, if we can." The decision was made then. This was not the most secure location, but if we turned the lights back off and stayed quiet inside there was every reason to think we might pass the night in safety. "Pack our things in case we must leave quickly. Is the water working? I could use a shower."

"Yes, I had a bath earlier, too. I listened in case anyone came but there was nothing near us all day that I could hear." I felt reassured by that. She was thinking reasonably enough to have some concern about security even if she was being more reckless than I was comfortable with. It was inevitable though that she would need to get out and use the bathroom and get food and water during the day. I had not had time to consider that in the wake of everything that had happened.

"Do you want to come with me?" She shook her head no. I was disappointed but thought it might be for the best. I had no idea what would set her off again. "Was it me, Sookie? Did I do something wrong?" She shook her head. "Was it what Karin said?" She stiffened in my arms and tried to wriggle away from me but I held her fast. She had always been a runner but there was no more time for that now. There was no place to run to. There was just Sookie and me and our unbreakable bond and whatever there was to come. The future felt large and looming before me.

There would be no more running for either of us. We had been fooling ourselves that all roads didn't lead back to each other. "Just stay here with me," I pleaded. "Just a few moments, please." Cautiously, I opened our bond again ready as I could be to have the door slammed on me. Her end was closed off tightly. Seeing a door in my mind I reached out and knocked. She opened it just a crack and out came the deepest anguish I had ever felt in my thousand years.

It made my misery for the loss of Godric and Nora seem insignificant. "What is it, Sookie? Tell me what's wrong?" I felt the door ease shut this time, but shut none the less. She kissed my cheek softly. "Go take your bath. We need turn the generator off and make quiet for nightfall." Was she reading my mind now, too?

I sat her on the sofa and moved to the door, glancing back once to see her bury her head in her hands and hunch her shoulders like she was carrying the weight of the world on her. I started again to ask her to come with me but stopped. I let her be and went to bathe.

32XXXXXXXXXXX23

I had run my bath when she killed the generator. Sunset was about fifteen minutes away. I hurried, and once I was dressed I searched for Sookie in my blood. She was above me and I was on the second floor and she was feeling nauseous. So much so that I too felt it. It was disconcerting. I rushed to her side and found myself at the top of Russell's house in the cupola.

She held her hand up in front of her lips as she felt me come up beside her and then she took my hand. I felt her open the bond and closed my eyes reveling in the sensation. I was a live wire again from head to toe.

_Can you hear me? _

_Yes. Can you hear me?_

_Yes._

What is it? I moved closer, pressing my front to her back and looking out into the dusk that was growing darker by the second. I saw something moving about a quarter mile away. It was creeping through the grass slowly. Then I heard voices.

"Over here! I can't believe it made it this fucking far! Cock sucker buried itself in the ground for the day! Just came right up in front of me. I was sure we would need to go back to find it but damned it you weren't right!"

"Fuck, Dan! Look at that thing crawl!" I zeroed in and saw that they were following the moving torso of a Z through the grass. It's body had been cleaved in two but it was still moving away from them and toward us, making pretty decent time since it was pulling itself along the ground with only it's arms.

"Evil sumbitches! Fucker should have died when we cut it in half! Where you reckon he's so hell bent to go? Ain't nothin' round here for a country fuckin' mile?" I saw Dan take off his dirty yellow CAT hat and scratch his head trying to puzzle it out before he jammed it back down with the practiced ease of man who wore a cap every day.

"Get the silver outtin' the truck!"

"Damn it, Deke. You know silver don't work no more!"

"Oh, yeah. So, what now then?"

"Damn if I know." They stood there for a minute and then Dan clapped his hands together. "Let's set the fucker on fire!"

"Fuck yeah!" Deke went off, presumably back to the truck while Dan followed the crawling Z. He wasn't as dumb as he seemed because he kept his distance from the long arms reaching out over and over again as it pulled itself along.

_It's looking for us_, she thought to me. I couldn't argue. It seemed unlikely but not impossible.

_Not when they burn it,_ I thought back to her. She shuddered against me. I held her tighter but still made no sound. Dan and Deke might be less troublesome than a Z, but I had had enough trouble to not want anymore. Ever.

_How did you know they were out here?_

_I heard their thoughts. Your blood increases my range. It also give me better control I think. It…you, you make me stronger. I can do anything if I am with you._

_I feel the same._

Deke came back then with some matches and a gas can. They threw the gas and lit the match and I watched transfixed to see if fire would indeed kill this loathsome creature slowly crawling toward our hiding place. When its scream lit up the night along with its body I knew. Fire still gets the killing done. Fire and sunlight. Maybe Sookie's light bolts, too. They didn't seem too anxious to eat those either. Was there a connection between her light, the firelight, and the sunlight?

There had to be some way to stop this madness.

_There is_, she thought to me. I had forgot I had an audience. For just a moment I appreciated why she freaked out last night when I had read her mind and she wasn't expecting it.

_Do you know what it is?_ The door shut again and she just pressed back to me as we looked out at Dan and Deke's bonfire. We stayed until they left mumbling to themselves as they headed back to their truck planning to get them some "deader zombies".

There might be some way to stop this madness, my cynical side thought, but was it worth saving assholes like Dan and Deke? I had no answer for that and Sookie was no longer sharing thoughts with me. Why did she shut down every time I asked about Karin? Was it possible that Karin wasn't real and I was only seeing what Sookie thought she saw?

I searched the surrounding area and felt nothing. No Z's and no more rednecks. Looks like we were in for a peaceful night I thought as I followed Sookie back down into Russell's house.

32XXXXXXXXXX23

Sookie lit the candles again along with some more she had found somewhere. She picked up a large thick book off Russell's desk and moving to the couch motioned for me to join her. She opened it to a place she had marked and handed it to me. The light was dim but she knew I could see anyway.

Karin Svensdotter. _In 1656, Karin Svensdotter, who worked as a maid, was put on trial at Västra Härad in Sävsjö in Småland. She was put on trial because she claimed that she had a sexual relationship with a male fairie with whom she claimed to have issue. Karin Svensdotter told the court that she had met a beautiful man in golden clothes in a mountain called Grönskulle (Green Hill), where they had sung and danced with others. The man called himself Älvakungen (King of the fairies), or Älven (Fairy), and he gave her gifts and had intercourse with her. Seven times she had given birth to their issue, and every time he had come and taken the children away to the land of the fairies. She stated that these births had taken place during her reoccurring attacks and fits, after which she was very tired. Her fits had been witnessed by many, and Karin's employer testified that he had often heard her searching for her faerie children in the forest._

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Sookie waiting for the shoe I could feel dangling above the floor.

"My great granddaddy Niall was her lover." I sat back.

"Your…great granddaddy was…The King of Fae?"

"Yep."

"So your grandfather was…"

"One of those seven."

"And this is your Karin?"

"Yep." I looked back at the book. She had barely avoided being burned at the stake after being accused of witchcraft in 1656.

"She was a fairy, too?"

"Partly, like me."

"And sometime later she was made vampire?" She nodded. "And this is who we are to meet in Four Points?" She nodded again. "What is she going to do?" Sookie sighed.

"She is going to cast a spell that will fix all this. She said it was why she was turned in 1658 by someone she called the Ancient Pythoness." It hit me like a kick in the chest.

"Does the Ancient One still live?"

"She didn't say. Only that this was why she had been turned."

"And you believe her?" She looked at me then. Really looked at me for maybe the first time since I had found her.

"She said you were coming for me. I didn't believe her yet…here you are."

Yes, here I was. In my enemy's house, bonded to the only woman I had ever loved on my way to Four Points to save the world.

I was speechless.

_32XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX23_

_A/N- If you are reading this on my WP site the hyperlink will take you to the wiki page on Karin Svensdotter. If not, you can Google her. She was real and her story to the best of my knowledge is true. The excerpt about her was pulled verbatim from the wiki page._

_I was actually present at the convention where Harlan Ellison was forcibly removed for his behavior over his infamous Trek episode. I did not see it happen myself but it was the talk of the weekend at the Con. I have nothing but the deepest respect for Mr. Ellison and I understand his passion and his grief. There is much written about this brilliant man and his story and this is but one link. If you want more, Google will be your friend here as well._

_Lastly, while the idea for this story has been in my mind for over a year it was the picture of the girl with the lamp that Kittyinaz is using for her January writing competition that inspired me to find an use the story of Karin Svensdotter. I had planned to enter this tale in that competition but I am not a patient person and when my muse starts to dance I am but his fingers that tell the tale._

_Special thanks to whoever wrote the wiki page about Karin, to Harlan Ellison for being a fucking genius and for Kittyinaz for working so damned hard to inspire art in the world around her._

_Also, a shout out to _ . _for taking the time to write out the transcript I used for the excerpts of dialog in this chapter. Those words are not mine but I honor them here._

_Blessings to you all. Thanks for reading! __J_


	6. Magic Tumblers

**Magic Tumblers**

She was waiting on me to say something. I was waiting for the second shoe. My mind raced to try and figure out what she wasn't saying. Her actions and reactions told me that it was pretty fucking big. I was missing something. Everyone had a tell. When it was this big everyone had to tell. I knew she had been telling me what was really going for some time. I just wasn't seeing it. Was it because I didn't want to see it?

"Tell me the rest." She dropped her head confirming my suspicions. That was all she gave me though. "How did you find this book? How did you know it would be here, Sookie?"

"I didn't. Russell was so proud of his collection of shit that I took a look around. You had been asking who Karin was, this was the easiest way to tell you. It also confirmed for me that she was really real and not just something I dreamed up." So she doubted her mind then, too. How horrible it would be to be mad and still just sane enough to recognize it.

I was allowing myself to be distracted again. I knew it. I had known it for a while. It was my gut telling that the weight of that second shoe was going to crush me. Not that I didn't deserve it, but still. "It's just a history book, Eric," she said dismissively.

"Do you know who the Ancient One is to my race, Sookie?" She shook her head but still would not meet my gaze. "What did Karin tell you of her?"

"Only that she was her maker." Right. So the part about her being the Supreme Council Leader for the vampire race was a detail that Karin left out. The fact that until just moments before he had never known that the Ancient One had made a child was irrelevant? Was it? No. I am asking the wrong questions.

If the Ancient knew that this was going to happen and had created a failsafe why did she not prevent it from happening in the first place? THAT was the question.

I had met her once and found her to be frightening and intriguing. She had spoken in riddles that left me frustrated in her presence and glad when she departed. Everyone knew of her, but few knew her. It was rumored that she herself was mad. Her mind ravaged from seeing into so many worlds and possibilities at once that it was more than she could manage and often struggled to communicate because she was never sure what world she was in at any moment.

If she had made progeny though clearly she had moments of lucidity as did my love. Sookie had been through so much already. If she were better I might share these thoughts with her and seek her opinion on what was to come. She was too fragile though. Perhaps not so much because of what had happened but what she already knew was to come. This was very frustrating.

I sat back and let the candlelight lull my mind. After a few moments Sookie moved closer and shifted so that that her front was pressed to mine, her legs stretched out beside me. "It'll be all right, Eric. I promise that I believe that. You should, too." Her words meant to reassure me did anything but. She snuggled in closer to me, wrapping her arms around me. She sighed then taking a deep breath. My arms came up around her.

"You did grow on me,'" she said softly. "I know that everyone got caught up in the blood you tricked me into drinking from you after the bomb explosion, but it was happening before that." I purred at her words. "I know you were the one who changed my clothes after the Maenad attacked me." I stilled. We had never discussed what had happened that night after Compton had whined his way to his guest coffin.

When there had been none to see I had washed her back and changed her shirt. Her eyes had opened briefly and she had smiled at me sweetly before she passed out again. I had let myself hope that it might be a new beginning for us only to awaken and have her slap the smile onto my face the next night over Lafayette.

"It was part of the reason I was so damned mad at you that night. I was pissed about Lafayette but that was just the excuse really. You made me feel something for you and that made me angry. I was supposed to be in love but your gesture in the wake of my fight with Bill stripped me bare, figuratively as well as literally."

"Fight?"

"Yes, I was walking down that road because Bill had shown me a glimpse of something I had been pretending wasn't there up to that point. He was cold and controlling and manipulative. When I woke and saw you caring for me privately, so sweetly it cast a bright light on how Bill treated me in comparison. It…made me feel foolish…and that always makes me feel angry. I took that anger out on you and for that I am sorry for that."

"I'm sorry I couldn't have shown you how I felt in front of the world." I would do it all differently if I had another chance now, but such thoughts were folly.

"You wouldn't be Sheriff Eric Northman if you wore your heart on your sleeve."

"No, I would just be Eric, like I was with you for those few peaceful days at your house." She sighed again then.

"Those were the best days."

"You should have come swimming with me in the sun." She giggled then.

"Yes, I should have. You were so funny and sexy in the water. Crazy, too! That swimmin' hole was filled with gators! I wasn't jokin'!"

"Nor was I when I said I would slay them for you, my queen." She grew quiet lost in her own thoughts for a while.

"I had this book once about this woman who said that she thought it was funny how we influence each other. She said that she was often amused and saddened by the notion that she was influenced to become the perfect companion for the person that she had just lost from her life. She said that it was wonderful to have picked up little pieces of them to carry with her, mannerisms, perspectives, ideas, but so sad that those little changes were only echoes of the person they had lost. The person that they were now fashioned to fit better if not perfectly." I thought about what she was saying.

I had indeed fashioned parts of myself after those I had admired and lost. Becoming like them in some little ways to ease missing them from my life. It was bittersweet to find yourself perfect for a place that no longer existed. 'I understand," I assured her and was rewarded by feeling the bond between us open a little. I gasped at the intensity of what she was feeling.

There was anger, and sadness and so much love that it made my heart hurt. "I should have gone swimmin' with you." I wanted to reassure her that there would be other chances. I wanted to reassure her. I could not. The world that we now lived in left little hope for sunny day swimming jaunts. She clutched at me then with her hands and her mind. "I should have kissed you on the porch the night before I went to Jackson. I should have ran away with you instead of going to fight with Bill. I should have…" her voice broke then and she started sobbing in my arms. "I should have never left you at Bill's that night. I should have flown away with you into the night and never ever left your side!" I held her tighter as she cried.

How different would any of this be if she had done any one of those things she had said?

"I am not sorry that I came to your house that night protect you," I said fiercely as I rocked her. "I am not sorry that I made love to you in the woods and pretended that your heartbeat was mine. I am not sorry for any of it. It wasn't all missed chances, there was glory in each moment that I spent with you." I swallowed the knot in my throat. "I kept you so far away because you meant more to me than anything else. To show that, to let anyone know that was to put you at risk. Even if it meant never being near you again it was worth it for that protection of what I held most dear. I regret only that it caused you to think that I did not care.

"Even in all the missed opportunities there was much that was good between us, Sookie." She opened to me completely then, as if I had cracked the magic tumblers of her emotional safe. I wanted to slow it down and sift through the torrent like a man panning for gold but it was so much I could barely hold on as she swept me away again and again.

All our moments in time floating in my mind, spinning. All I could see was my face…smiling, smirking, fangs down, fangs up, passion, tenderness, anger…a collage of me and then one brighter than all the others took over our mind. _"If you kiss me, I promise to be happy."_

It had been a long time coming but she did kiss me then and it was everything I had hoped it would be that night. Focusing only on the things between us that had been right I started swimming in the river of Sookie and claimed her lips as mine. She surrendered to me giving herself to me completely as she only ever had before in our shared dream of the bed in the forest.

My body was on the sofa with hers, but our minds were back in that forest, in that bed with the snow falling on our skin. A different world, a better world than this one could have ever hoped to be even on its best day. Here we were one. We made this place together then and we made together again now her body moving over mine, clothes melting off, thoughts falling away until I felt my body join with hers again as we had so long ago.

My fangs came down as the heat of her swallowed my cold aching cock. "So good," I whispered into her neck in two different worlds at once.

"The best," she answered between kisses as she rode me, her hands moving on my body memorizing me on the outside as she did on the inside of her. It was hot and sweet beyond words. "Love you," she said to me inside and outside of the bond. "Always love you," she threw her head back then, screaming her pleasure as she came apart in my arms. I buried my head in her breasts and followed behind her, my body feeling complete once again. My soul feeling whole like it never had before.

I could regret nothing any longer if it had led to this. We had passed the night in tender caresses and wide open passion. It was about feeling more than words. It was the best night I could remember ever having.

32XXXXXXXX23

She was ready when I rose late the next afternoon. She was closed down from me again and I missed our open bond like I had lost an arm. I wanted to press her, demand that she tell me but I did not want to anger her or push her too far. I would know soon enough. I estimated two hours and we would be Four Points. I showered and dressed and we took to the air.

We did not speak during the flight though she held me close as I did her. I had this incredible sense of foreboding that was making me edgy. Glancing down as we flew I saw Z's from time to time looking up at the sky tracking our progress. It chilled me and did nothing to ease my tension. Sookie did not look but I believed she knew they were there anyway.

"We are here," I told her.

"Go to the river. She will meet us there." Seeing it in the distance I flew toward it. It looked black in the moonlight. "Here. She is here." I scanned the area for Z's but sensed only another vampire. I landed softly and set Sookie gently on her feet, keeping her in my arms on alert to take off again if necessary.

A small red haired vampire stepped from the trees along the river and came toward us. She looked just as I had seen her two nights ago. Before Warlow I had not known of fairy vampires. He was a real piece of work. I wondered what her deal would be. She stopped a few feet in front of us staring intently at Sookie and I realized they were communicating telepathically. Karin nodded and then she looked at me.

"We don't have much time." When did we ever and wasn't that my line?

"We have enough for you to tell me what the fuck is going on." Sookie stiffened in front of me. It was then that I felt it for the first time. Thrumming beneath my feet coming up from the very ground itself. There was a sound not unlike a tuning fork emanating between Karin and the ground. She had something on her person that was causing the ground to vibrate. "Show me now, or we leave." Sookie grabbed my hand squeezing it.

Karin pulled a dagger from behind her. It was glowing and my supernatural hearing could sense its vibrations. "We are standing on a ley line," she said speaking for the first time. "The **_Athamen av nåd_** senses the power and is responding."

"The Athame of Grace?" I asked, also translating the Swedish for Sookie. Karin smiled slightly.

"It has many names, but yes that is correct, Viking. It is good to see you still remember the old ways." I raise an eyebrow. Compared to me she is but a babe. Perhaps it is her dual nature that made her so glib to a vampire six hundred years her senior. "It has also been called **_Akedah_**."

I moved Sookie behind me, stepping toward Karin who dropped her baby fangs as though they would even slow me down. My mind was racing again. Memories of Godric flipping past. "A long life is time to explore but also to learn. You should know all that you can, my child." At his encouragement I had studied and learned whenever I could. At first it was to please my master, then it was to appease my racing mind and answer my own gnawing questions. I was a library of information and languages long dead and still spoken on this earth. I knew not only that Karin had just called the dagger by an ancient Hebrew name but also the meaning of the name she had given it.

**_Akedah_** was the knife that Abraham had planned to use to sacrifice his only son Isaac on the mountaintop.


	7. Dylan Knew His Shit

**Dylan Knew His Shit**

I had fancied myself a student of the world. It was necessary to adaption and survival to understand the motivations of those you moved among. If you were able to see paths that people and plans might take you could get ahead of them. You could not only survive but triumph. Most of my long life I had excelled at this kind of thinking. I had the library of time in my mind, surely something in that vast archive could help us now.

Stop. I need more information. Information that Sookie knew. Information that Karin knew. Information that I had been on the edge of since I found Sookie whispering to candle just a few nights past. Before I could find a way around I had to know the height and width of the mountain I was facing. My fangs snapped down and I rose to my full height. "Explain." Karin stood tall as well facing what could be her own death in the next seconds without flinching.

"I am meant to channel the magic of this place, and the two of you to reset time and give the world another chance to prevent this all from coming to pass. The Z's, as you call them, know of this plan and are coming here right now to stop us."

"How do they know? They are but shadows of mindless skittering things."

"You know this is not true, Northman. The faster you can accept what I am sure is unacceptable to you the more secure a different outcome will be for us all." Rage bubbled up inside me and I took another step toward her. No one had the balls to say what we were dancing around and yet I was expected to just accept these unformed truths complacently and with ease. Oh, fuck no!

"Speak truth to me witch or we will leave you here to face the hordes alone. I am not a puppet!" Sookie placed her hand on my back but I shrugged her off in my anger. She had known this and had not told me. I was furious with her at this moment, that she would place me in this position with no preparation.

"Fuck you, vampire!" Karin snarled at me, provoking me further in my rage. "You act as though you are the only one here to pay for this! I was pulled from my mortal life and made into this vile form to serve, to be here in this moment only! You are not the only one who will sacrifice this night for a chance at a better tomorrow. Fuck you for thinking you are too good to bleed! We all bleed for this cause!"

"YOU WANT ME TO KILL SOOKIE!" I roared out the unacceptable my hands clenched in claws with rage so thick in my veins that I could think of nothing other than how this was not going to happen.

"It's more complicated than that, Eric," Sookie said behind me, speaking for the first time since we had landed in this clearing by the river. I turned my rage on her then.

"How dare you do this? You said nothing! NOTHING!"

"And what could I have said that would have done anything other than send you in the opposite direction of hope? If you had suspected you would have taken us as far from this place as possible until it was too late!" She was right but that did nothing to soothe my rage and pain.

"It was my choice to do that!"

"And it was mine, too! I can't live in this world anymore! The night you showed up like a dream I was planning to kill myself. There was nothing left for me. Every fucking one I knew was dead already or trapped in a hell that you cannot imagine and I cannot escape! I can hear and see them, Eric! They are in my fucking mind all the time. ALL THE FUCKING TIME! I CAN'T STAND ANOTHER MINUTE! NOT ANOTHER GODDAMNED MINUTE OF IT!"

She threw open the bond then and reached out to me taking me into her mind showing me all the things that she had hidden from me. Showing me all the things that had torn at her sanity until she was in pieces that could never be sewn together again. The gaps were too wide and the crazy just keep seeping in.

Together our minds flew across the world, to the hive that I had only suspected. It was a dim cave deep underground. There thousands of them slithered and crawled through the dark with ravenous intent. Their hunger crippled my body and left it shaking by the river as my mind went deeper into the hive and their twisted desires. All the way to the leader, their queen.

All the way to what had once been my beautiful Pamela.

She was covered in them as they worshipped and adored her. Masses of them writhing at her feet awaiting her every command. Ready to do anything she asked. My Pamela had adapted and survived exactly as I had taught her to do. She had triumphed turning disaster into opportunity exactly as I had taught her to do.

My Pamela was the leader of the Z's.

I needed to sit down. That never happened. I clutched at Sookie as I listened to what she was subjected to day and night from the hordes that Pam commanded. At first it was like the hissing of snakes, low and quiet and then the volume rose so loud my skull vibrated from the force of it, from the power of millions of minds united in single thought and purpose.

I understood then. Sookie had struggled to shut out random individual thoughts but the power of millions united into a single thought was like a psychic atomic bomb that was constantly exploding in her mind. It could not be shut out. It could not be denied.

All the loved ones that had fallen, Jason, Tara, Alcide, Bill, Pam had taken their knowledge of Sookie and used it to fuel her hatred. She knew how to target her long range missiles better than a computer guidance system. She knew just how to hurt her. Taking me as they had been trying to do since I touched down in Bon Temps would have been the _coup de grace_.

There was that, but there was more. If Karin was right then the hive had picked up someone who knew of this plan to reset time. Pamela was still doing exactly as I had taught her to do. She was fighting to survive. If I was the only one who could do this then taking me out was essential to her survival.

A part of me had to admire the unstoppable vampire I had made so long ago. She was a wonder to behold. Her strength! She had mastered the Hep-V and turned it into something else entirely. I could judge all I wanted from where I stood but I knew that in truth if I had been in position I would have done my best to survive as well. I would be doing what she was doing right now because she was mine and I was hers as well. I would seek to bring her to the hive and keep her by side.

But I had a different vantage point. I still had the things that she had been forced to surrender in order to survive in this world. Given the choice with what I know now I could not take this road with her. Nor could I as her maker, the one responsible for her in good faith and good conscience allow her to stay on this path either.

Before I could speak I felt Sookie take a breath which was all the warning I got before we were overcome with a barrage of bloody images. Over and over I saw the horde kill her loved ones. Over and over I saw them rise, transformed and adapted to their new existence of perfect killing machines. I saw the people they ate and killed and felt their resplendent and utter joy at knowing only one thing and satisfying it over and over. Their endless hunger their bottomless emptiness sucking at me like quicksand.

It was Sookie's screams that brought me back to the here and now beside the river. I held her as she thrashed and whimpered in my arms. I cried with her as I finally understood. Forcing myself to gather my wits and look around at our exposed position I saw that Karin had been moving. She had laid out a grid of stones around us forming a square approximately twenty feet in diameter. Inside that square she had laid out three larger stone forming a triangle. Sookie and I stood in the middle of that triangle but that was not what made my blood run colder than normal.

What made me feel like the blood had turned to ice inside me was that outside the square Karin had laid out was a horde of Z's standing with their hungry gazes locked on us. I deduced that the magic square was holding them out somehow. I had studied magics along with everything else and little scraps of knowledge from my rational mind came back to me about the magical properties of geometric shapes in conjunction with vibrational frequencies, ley lines, and abilities of certain stones to enhance them.

The square, the triangle and then came the circle. I was still holding Sookie anticipating that Karin would draw that shape next when she stopped and came to us. She was holding the dagger her face stern with intent and showing the effort that she was exerting to hold the magical barrier together. I was ready to kill her if she tried to hurt Sookie, then we would fly away from here and figure this out somewhere safe.

Except, there was nowhere safe left. If I had felt it before I now knew it with certainty. Pam would never let me go. I knew that because I would have never let her go.

Karin stopped and reached out a hand to touch Sookie throwing herself telepathically into our wide open bond. **I have a message**, she thought to us and then I saw the visage of the Ancient Pythoness commanding her progeny to pass this on to me when the time came. Her words crashed like thunder in my mind and Sookie whimpered again, burrowing closer to me, too ravaged to do anything other than hold on.

**_Viking what is asked of you is the greatest of sacrifices. The love you hold for the halfling burns bright across all time and space. If you can find the strength to do what must be done then we might set this right. We might give you the chance to do things differently and stop this future from coming into existence. You and your love are the only hope that is left. Follow your heart. Make better choices._**

When the message ended Karin stepped back and moved away. I watched as she started a small fire inside the square. Then she gathered a small pile of earth before turning back to me. "We have all the power here that can be summoned on this plain. Earth, air, fire and water," she said gesturing to the river. "In conjunction with ley line, the square and the triangle."

"What of the circle?"

"The bond shared by you and Sookie is the sacred circle. No end. No beginning. Your love and sacrifice the catalyst that will make this world spin backwards on its course to a time when all this might be different." She held the dagger out to me again. "What say you?"

I say this is fucking crazy.

I say there must be another way.

I say I am about two seconds away from flying the fuck away from here with Sookie in my arms and letting the fucking world just burn to a cinder.

I say...NO… FUCKING…WAY!

**"MMMMMMMaaaaaasssstttttteeeerrrrrrrrrrrr**," the Z's moaned from the edge of the square. **"Join us! Be one with us forever!"** I closed my eyes and held Sookie to me. What a fucking nightmare.

**Save us, Eric**. Our bond was still open and she thought her wishes to me. She showed me the missed chances that we had spoken of just last night. She showed me her hope for the way things could be if I were strong enough to set this right. She showed me that she needed me to do this. The whole fucking world needed me to do this because the dark was closing in on the light and soon there would be nothing left here.

**I can't, Sookie. Please don't ask this of me.**

**Let my death have meaning, Eric. If they are right you will get another chance to set this right. We will get another chance to do the things that we should have done. I love you, Eric. I will always love you. Don't let that be taken from me. Don't leave me to die here in the dark!**

I kissed her forehead and steeled myself to do this. Once the decision was made it was like turning on a light switch. The night was split when light shot up to the sky first from the edges of the square into the heavens. As one the Z's cried out, burning from its intensity. Next, the triangle lit up offering another wall of protection. Last, Sookie and I lit up with the power of her light passing to me as well through the wide open bond. Her head fell back on my arm around her shoulder and I could feel her starting to burn in my arms.

Karin pulled a small tape recorder from her pocket and pressed play. The night was split with the mystical tones of **_Dylan's All Along the Watchtower_** with Hendrix on the guitar. I raised an eyebrow at Karin and she shrugged. "Dylan knew his shit," was all she offered in way of explanation. I filled in the rest. It was Gregorian chanting, but there was definitely power in these tones.

When the ley line heard the beats and strings of Hendrix it picked up the tune and suddenly the universe was filled with magic and music. It felt glorious when the music pushed back the dark and the barriers around us became a light show pulsing to the beat. Despite what I had to do, there was so much beauty here in this moment that I could not comprehend it all. It reminded me that here there had once been great good in this world and there could be again.

I looked down at Sookie, squinting in the glare of her fire. She was smiling at me. A real smile and it reassured me once again that this was right.

**I will find you again, Sookie. In this world, or any other. Nothing will keep me from your side. I swear it! **

She reached up to touch my face and I could feel her burning my skin with her touch.

I slipped the dagger into her back and pierced her heart in one quick decisive thrust. Her light intensified and just as Hendrix hit his powerful guitar bridge the light show intensified to match her own pulsing light.

I could my body dissolving as she burned me up with her in the heart of the fire that was our love.

**I love you, Sookie**, was my final thought. In the last strings of our bond I heard her tinkling laughter and felt her love come back to me like a river again. Her voice following me through to wherever I was going.

**I know…**

32XXXXXXXXXX23

I was falling and flying all at once the stars shooting past me like streaks of light infinite in length. This was where forever lived. If there was a God any moment I might be able to touch his face and finally divine his purpose. But something was missing. Something I needed very much.

Sookie…

I needed Sookie. I pictured her before me. The girl in the white dress her hair like sun, her smell the sweetest of sins. I had no body but I had my soul and it called to hers.

Sookie….

The stars fade and the universe spins around me… until…

…I am on my throne in Fangtasia and before me stands Bill and Sookie. This is the first night we met. The first time I saw her.

"Yes, of course. Uh, sorry. Eric this is my friend…" I cut him off.

"Sookie Stackhouse." She looks at me like I just walked over her grave. She has no idea.

"How do you know my name?" I raise a hand to silence Pam before she can speak.

"I know that you want me to help you find a killer. I will do that." She looks at me intently and I can see that she wondering how I know this. She is wondering if in fact I am the killer she seeks. Dropping the cold demeanor I wore then like a blanket of protection the first time around I look at her with my heart in my eyes and I smile thinking of all the adventures and love we will share in times to come.

I see her take a deep breath and respond to the warmth she sees in my gaze. I lean forward slowly and still smiling at her like I am seeing the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, I say the one thing that she promised me would make this all go differently.

"Telephony…"

~The End~


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